16.12.13

Wall of Thorns

As published for the first time, this digital collage was accompanied by a caption introducing it as Much in common (reminder).[1] Curiously enough, such words don’t constitute the title of this artwork, which is actually A Lot in Common.

Not all my works receive a title as soon as they have been finished: sometimes they have the title put before the work is initiated, other times they receive it in the making, and in other opportunities they have it put once the work has been finished. This last case is valid to A Lot in Common, a composition also recalling Kandinsky’s words on the artwork as having an autonomous life.[2]

In A Lot in Common, the motifs and their interplay may possibly appear enigmatic. The crown of thorns, for example, has its referent in the Gospel, but its use in this composition has to do with the creation of new meanings. After all, not every single crown of thorns is necessarily that of Jesus.

Different layers of meaning are suggested in A Lot in Common via the use of a hybrid motif—a figure “7” that can also be read as the letter “J.” Because of its double nature, this hybrid symbol doesn’t simply refer to, for instance, the seven days of the Creation or God’s name (Jehovah, Jesus, etc.). Notably, it refers to both of these notions at once, rejecting the exclusive idea of “either this or that,” to embrace a rather inclusive one—“both this and that.”

Thus, the central symbol of A Lot in Common has to do with the seven days of Creation” and God’s name simultaneously (both-and phenomenon in the visual arts). Apart from its biblical symbolism, the figure “7” suggests human creativeness and a seven-day routine. Surrounded by thorns, the “7-J” motif evokes Jerusalem, the holy city, with a wall of thorns, which in theory is supposed to protect her, but as a matter of fact hurts her: the wall of thorns stands for segregation, ghetto, divorce, isolation, suffering, sacrifice, impotence.

All the pain connected to monotheism inhabits A Lot in Common, embracing that of Jehovah, Jesus, Jamal.

As today pain prevails in that city, sometimes seen as the legendary center of the world,[3], pain becomes quite general and reverberates in each of us. Jazmín, Jonathan, Juliana, James, Jessica, Justine, Jacques, José, Judith, Jürgen, Japheth, Juanito... Jerusalem longs for Justice.
That is why Jerusalem and us have “A Lot in Common.”

References
Digital collage text. "Metaphasia. An inability to perceive metaphor" (Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, 1991).
[1] See Counterpoint, 11 November 2006
[2] See The Wisdom of Kandinsky, 15 November 2006
[3] On Jerusalem as the center of the world, see Impromptu, 7 July 2007

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